


there is a light and it never goes out

by darlingargents



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cunnilingus, First Time, Getting Together, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Magical or Temporary Sex Changes, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Other, Post-IT (2017), Sexual Tension, The Turtle Did It, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:55:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25950205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/pseuds/darlingargents
Summary: Eddie goes through some changes. Richie helps out.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 14
Kudos: 167
Collections: Kelly's Picks, Rule 63 Exchange 2020





	there is a light and it never goes out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [omniocularz (adaptation)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adaptation/gifts).



> Title from There Is a Light That Never Goes Out by The Smiths. Thank you eternally to S for the beta (any remaining mistakes are my own!) and H, C, and E for the cheerleading/helpful shaming :D couldn't have done it without you all! ♥♥♥

Richie is smoking behind the school on a rainy October day when he hears a whispered, “ _Psst_.” He jumps at the sound and tries to hide the cigarette behind his back, to limited success; he feels the smoke coming out of his mouth anyway. He glances around for the source of the sound, and it comes again, louder this time.

Then he realizes he didn't recognize the voice. It’s female and it’s not Bev, and he can’t think of anyone but Bev who would be doing that. He glances around, and moves a bit, and—

There’s a girl crouching beside one of the dumpsters, and he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her before, but she looks incredibly familiar, and incredibly pissed off. “Hey, asshole,” she snaps, and Richie drops the cigarette — it was almost done, anyway — and says a mental apology to Eddie, because he’s told Eddie about six times that he’s quit.

“Hi,” he says cautiously, looking her over. She stands up slowly, ignoring the light rain falling on her dark, tangled hair. She’s wearing jeans and a polo shirt that looks weirdly familiar.

“Richie, I need your help,” she says, and everything about her is painfully familiar. Her giant brown eyes that take up half her face, the full lips in an unhappy pout, the shirt. Where the hell has Richie seen that shirt before?

She crosses from the dumpster to where Richie is standing, under an overhang protecting him from the rain. She’s really short, post-Richie’s growth spurt. Basically up to his chin, about the same place where Eddie—

Recognition hits him all at once. The shirt. Eddie was wearing it in History class earlier. The eyes. The expression of disappointment.

“Eddie?” he says, hesitant, and the girl’s face floods with relief.

“Thank fucking god. I don’t know what happened, and you need to fucking help me.”

Well. It’s not the _weirdest_ thing that’s ever happened to Richie, but it’s up there.

*

He skips out of school early, not bothering to go to his last class, because neither of them want questions about why a random girl is stealing Eddie’s bike. His parents aren’t home when he gets there, and he hides Eddie’s bike in the shed, because it’s pretty clear that Mrs. K is going to report him missing and if his bike is at Richie’s house, it doesn’t look good for either of them.

In his room, Eddie — still Eddie, just different-looking — paces frantically in circles, wringing his hands, occasionally reaching up to tug at the tangled, wet hair dampening the shoulders of his shirt. His hair is much longer than it’s ever been before, and Richie is a little terrified of what will happen if they try to cut it. Or brush it. Maybe his mom has a hairbrush somewhere, because Richie doesn’t think his comb is going to cut it.

“I don’t know what happened,” Eddie says, again. He told Richie at the school, and again during the bike ride, and while Richie was hiding the bike, and now in Richie’s room. Richie is trying to figure out how to ask if Eddie wants to borrow one of Richie’s mom’s bras, because his boobs are… moving a lot.

It’s a little distracting.

“I was just taking a walk during lunch,” he says, stopping by the window to stare out at the street. The rain is coming down heavier now, and Richie is relieved that they got the bike hidden already. “And I saw a turtle on the path and I moved it out of the way so some dumbass on a skateboard wouldn’t run it over, and then I tripped and hit my head, and when I woke up I looked like this.” He yanks furiously at the ends of his hair again and groans in frustration. “This isn’t possible! I don’t understand!”

“I don’t know what to tell you, bro,” Richie says. He’s sitting on his bed, and his heart is pounding just a little faster. “Did you… check?”

“Check what?”

“Did all of you change? Or—”

Eddie’s cheeks turn the colour of tomatoes. “Yes, asshole, I lost my dick. Is that what you wanted to know?”

It definitely was. “No, I just meant, like — is it your whole body? Is the shape of you different or just the… uh…” Richie gestures in a way that he hopes will indicate ‘boobs and stuff’. Eddie rolls his eyes, the blush going down just a bit.

“I don’t know. I tried to run and my centre of gravity is all fucked up. My hips feel different.” He tugs at the belt loops of his jeans and spins around, showing a very snug fit. Richie looks away and hopes his own unruly hair is hiding his expression.

“Uh, yeah. Looks like you got swapped with the alternate version of you that is… a chick.”

“Ugh.” Eddie flops down on the bed beside him and stares up at the ceiling. His boobs are still moving a lot. Richie moves out of the way a bit, giving him space. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Have fun with it,” Richie says. “What’s it like to have boobs that you can just grab whenever? I still remember the one time Anna Kelley let me grab hers.” He forces a dreamy sigh, and tries not to think about how Anna had just stared awkwardly at him as he fondled the lumps on her chest that he was supposed to find appealing. He really, really hadn’t.

There’s something about Eddie’s, though, that makes it hard to look away.

“I don’t know,” Eddie says, putting his hands over his face. “It feels weird. I don’t want to touch this, I want my own body back.”

Fair enough, Richie supposes.

“What am I supposed to tell my mom?” Eddie asks, and Richie laughs at that. Eddie hits him in the gut, hard, and he rolls over with a groan.

“Dude, you can’t tell her,” Richie says when he gets his wind back. “She won’t believe you. She’ll think you're some distant relative who kidnapped Eddie and is trying to bleed her dry. She’ll call the cops and chase you out of the house with a rolling pin.”

Eddie winces. “So I can’t go home?”

“You can stay with me if you want,” Richie says, hoping his words don’t betray the anxious pounding of his heart. “I mean. In the basement or whatever. It’ll be like a sleepover. My parents won’t notice, they work a lot.”

“Hm.” Eddie sits up, propping himself up on his elbows. “And we’ll find a way to undo it?”

“Sure. I’ll call the rest of the Losers over on Friday night, we’ll see what we can do. My parents have a date night, they won’t notice. Until then, we can just hang out.”

Eddie looks skeptical, but he seems to be convinced. “Sure. Okay.” He reaches out for a fist-bump, and Richie bumps his fist gently against Eddie’s.

His hand is just a little bit smaller than it was before.

*

Around six, Richie and Eddie are hanging out in the living room, gorging themselves on chips and arguing about something pointless. If Richie doesn’t look directly at Eddie, he can forget that something has changed. He can ignore the different voice, the different way his body is arranged on the couch next to him.

Their knees are touching. Richie is trying not to think about that.

Just as they’re finishing one bag of Doritos and Eddie is laughing and saying that his mom would kill him if she saw how much he’d eaten, the phone rings. Richie wipes his hands on his jeans, ignores Eddie’s muffled, “That’s so fucking gross, dude,” through a mouthful of chips, and crosses the room to the phone.

“Tozier house,” he says through the last couple of Doritos in his mouth.

“Richie? Is Eddie over there?”

Richie freezes, and tries to swallow the Doritos as quietly as he can as he tries to think. “Uh, hi, Mrs. K,” he says with a significant look at Eddie. Eddie pales dramatically and tosses the empty chip bag aside as he stands up. “No, I haven’t seen Eddie since school today. Is everything okay?”

On the other end of the line, Mrs. K takes a deep, shuddering breath. She sounds like she’s been crying when she speaks again. “Tell me if you see him, okay? Call me right away.”

“Of course, Mrs. K.” For once, Richie is not remotely tempted to make a joke. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

“He certainly _won’t_ be when I get my hands on him,” Mrs. K says. “Thank you, Richie. Bye now.” The line goes dead, and Richie hangs up.

“What did she say?” Eddie asks frantically. “Oh, god, should I have left my bike at school? What if someone finds it?”

“No one’s going to find it,” Richie says. “And we’ll figure out how to get you back to normal anyway and it won’t matter.” He’s sure he’s not convincing Eddie any more than he’s convincing himself, but he has to try.

“What did she say?” Eddie repeats as he follows Richie into the kitchen. Richie absentmindedly opens the fridge, and wonders if he should order a pizza. His dad should be home soon. Maybe he’ll order one if Richie asks in the right way.

“Just asking if I’ve seen you. And uh, I think she’s going to beat you up when she finds you. Just like I beat up that p—”

“Shut the _fuck_ up,” Eddie says, punching Richie’s arm. Hard. This transformation certainly hasn’t reduced his strength, Richie thinks as he winces and rubs the spot.

“It’s fine,” Richie says. “She probably thinks you got picked up by a truck driver and you’re dead in a ditch, and when you come back safe and sound she’ll be really happy and everything will be great.”

“And I won’t be able to leave the house for the rest of the year.” Eddie reaches past Richie and grabs a Coke out of the fridge. “Ugh. Can we set up my bed before your dad gets home?” He starts to head down to the basement without waiting for an answer.

Richie follows him down, and wonders when exactly Eddie learned his dad’s work schedule.

*

There’s a rarely used guest bed in the corner of the basement, behind a wall and with a curtain for privacy, and there isn’t much to set up, as it turns out: the bed got set after the last guest left, whoever that was, and it’s still fine, if a bit dusty. Richie fluffs the pillows and whacks the sheets a couple times with a hockey stick to knock the dust out, and declares it good to go.

Eddie wrinkles his nose. It’s always been a cute look on him, but in his slightly-changed face, something about it is absolutely adorable. “I’m allergic to dust, you know,” he says. “I could choke to death in my sleep.”

“You’re definitely not allergic to dust. My entire basement is full of it and we’re down here all the time.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and flops down on the bed. Another dust cloud rises around him. “If I die down here, you’ll have to hide my body.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Richie sits down on the edge of the bed, suddenly nervous. They’ve had tons of sleepovers before, and this shouldn’t be anything new, but something about Eddie’s new body, about the precariousness of the situation, sets Richie on edge.

He really needs to talk to the other Losers. In fact—

“Hey, what if I call Bev and see if she has some clothes you can borrow?” Richie asks. “You know, for…” He tries to gesture at Eddie’s chest without being… weird about it. It doesn’t seem to work, going by Eddie’s expression.

“Sure, I guess. If you tell your parents you have a project together, maybe we can strategize together down here. Figure something out.”

“Sure.” Richie stands up. “I’ll go call her.”

He leaves without looking back, and tries not to think about the way Eddie’s eyes make him feel right now.

*

Bev is silent for probably thirty full seconds after Richie’s rushed explanation. He waits, eyes closed, forehead against the wall, contemplating banging it into the wall repeatedly.

“So you’re saying,” Bev says, slowly, “that Eddie has turned into a girl.”

“Yes.”

“You’re keeping him in your basement.”

“Yes.”

“And you need me to bring, um, _girl clothes_? Because of his… chest area?”

Richie winces. That had been the most difficult part of this. “Yeah.”

“You can say boobs, you know. I may have heard of them. From you, even.”

Richie considers shrivelling up and dying. “Mm-hm.”

“Okay,” Bev says after another long moment of silence. “I just had dinner, so I can probably come over in about fifteen minutes. I’ll bring a few things. But if they don’t fit, I can skip tomorrow and take Eddie shopping. He has money, right?”

“Yeah, he should.” He’s not supposed to, but Richie knows he’s been taking odd jobs around town: mowing lawns, feeding cats for vacationing families, small engine repair. He has a stash of money that he keeps on him at all times, that Mrs. K is blissfully unaware of.

“Okay,” Bev says. Richie hears noises on the other side of the phone, like she’s gathering her things. “I’ll be over in half an hour or so. Don’t avoid him, okay?”

“What?” Richie asks, guiltily. He hadn’t even really been aware he was doing it, but…

“I know you are. I’m sure you’re freaked out by every part of this. But I guarantee you, Eddie is freaking out ten times worse.”

“He seems okay,” Richie says, and hears how stupid that sounds as soon as he says it.

“Yeah, no shit, he’s putting on a good face. But his whole body changed. Wouldn’t you be freaking out?”

“I guess so.”

“So don’t avoid him. Don’t make him feel worse.”

“Yeah.”

“See you soon. Bye.”

“Bye.” Richie hangs up the phone, and allows himself two good head-whacks against the wall, just for luck. Or something.

***

It feels like Richie is gone for an eternity.

It’s just a normal-length phone call, Eddie knows, but he can’t stop the sudden wave of anxiety. That maybe Richie explaining the situation to someone else will make him realize how batshit it is, and he’ll kick Eddie out and Eddie will have nowhere to go.

Of all the fucked-up and scary things about this, the fact that Eddie can’t go home, that his own mother would scream at him and throw things at him until he leaves, is probably the worst. If Richie loses it, Eddie is truly fucked.

He’s trying not to think about it. He sits up on the guest bed, and sneezes again. Fucking dust. There’s a bookshelf on the wall next to the bed, filled with old fantasy novels and Harlequin romances. When he picks up the nearest one, a thick paperback with a picture of a dragon on the front, his fingers drag through a layer of dust rivalling the bed’s.

“Gross,” Eddie grumbles, and wipes off the cover. The dragon has glinting purple eyes and shiny green scales across its body, a coil of fire pouring out of its mouth. He’s about to flip it over and read the back — he needs to find _something_ to do all day tomorrow when Richie is at school — when he hears Richie coming back down the stairs, and puts the novel back. He doesn’t need Richie making fun of him for reading, too.

“Bev’s coming over,” Richie says, not quite looking at him. He’s been doing it since he first saw Eddie’s… change, and Eddie’s sure he doesn’t think it’s obvious, but it definitely is. He can’t really blame Richie for it. The idea of looking at himself in a mirror right now makes him feel vaguely ill.

Everything feels… wrong. His balance is off. The back of his neck is itching from the hair resting on it. His chest hurts, probably from the lack of support for his… ugh. He can’t even blame Richie for not wanting to say it. He doesn’t even want to think about it.

It’s all wrong, and he doesn’t know how he’s going to get used to it. Or if he’ll ever get back to normal, ever be himself again—

“Does she have some clothes?” Eddie manages, snapping himself out of the spiral of anxious thoughts.

“Yeah. She said they might not fit, but she can take you shopping tomorrow. Instead of staying in my basement.”

“That does sound better,” Eddie says. It really does. He hasn’t had much chance to talk to Bev alone for a while, and she’s probably the only person he wants to ask questions about this body.

“Hey…” Richie says, and Eddie looks up at him, into his eyes. He’s actually making eye contact, for the first time in a while. “Um. I know this must be really weird. But we’re going to fix it, okay? We’re going to figure out how to get you back to normal.”

Eddie’s chest feels tight. He nods, suddenly sure that if he tries to speak, he’ll do something stupid and embarrassing like cry or say actually nice things to Richie. God forbid.

Bev doesn’t bother knocking, so there’s no warning before she comes down the basement stairs and rounds the corner to the guest bed. She stops in her tracks, staring at Eddie, where he’s sitting on the bed. Richie is on the floor next to it, flipping absentmindedly through a magazine, and when he notices Bev standing there, he tosses it aside.

“Holy shit,” Bev says after a moment. “That’s… you’re right. I believed you, but… wow.” She snaps out of her shock and digs through the backpack she brought. “Richie, out,” she says, and Richie practically falls over himself trying to get out, shooting an apologetic look back at Eddie as he retreats up the stairs. Eddie rolls his eyes.

“I brought a dress,” Bev says. She gives up on digging through the bag, and dumps it on the bed instead, a mess of colourful fabric. “But I thought that might be… too much, so I brought some t-shirts as well. And if none of it fits you, we can skip school and go to Goodwill tomorrow.”

“I’m skipping school anyway,” Eddie mutters, and picks up the closest thing — a blue dress with a drawstring tie. He’s not too freaked out by the idea of putting on a dress, he thinks, as long as he thinks of it as a costume. He’s in character, now, as the female version of himself.

“As for… uh, support…” Bev digs through the pile and grabs something, lifting it triumphantly. “Camisole. Not a lot of support, but better than nothing, and it’ll probably fit you.” Now that she’s holding it up, it looks like a white tank top with thin straps, and Bev turns it inside out to show Eddie the elastic band to hold everything up. Huh. Women’s clothing has more hidden depths than he’d assumed.

“Want me to leave while you try something on?” Bev asks, and Eddie shakes his head. He hasn’t seen the extent of this body yet, and Bev is probably more familiar with the general… bits than he is.

Summoning all of his courage, Eddie takes a deep breath and pulls off his shirt.

Bev doesn’t react. He’s not sure what he was expecting — more shock and horror? Confusion? Something else? — but she doesn’t do anything but look with casual interest. Eddie throws the shirt on the ground, and looks down to the chest that is entirely different from the one he woke up with.

Well. His — breasts sounds clinical, but it’s better than _boobs_ , which just sounds like Richie — his breasts are big. Bigger than Bev’s, and he’s a little worried about the possible fit of any of the clothes she’s brought, because she’s taller and he’s… curvier. He’s pretty sure the hips are proportional to the breasts.

Eddie has absolutely zero desire to touch them. He’s always vaguely thought that seeing them in person would be better than in the magazines, which had done nothing for him. Maybe it’s not the same, seeing them attached to you.

Of course it’s not the same. It’s a weird, fucked up situation. He can’t really be blamed for the weirdness of his reactions.

“Okay,” Bev says, when Eddie has been standing there and looking down for probably an uncomfortable length of time. He looks up at her. “Try this on.”

She hands him the tank top. Camisole. Whatever. Eddie pulls it on over his head, struggling with the elastic band, and manages to adjust it.

It fits. Kind of. It’s a bit of a relief, a bit of a lift, but it’s clearly too small, his breasts spilling out over the top. Bev winces.

“Guess not,” Eddie says, and Bev nods.

“If that doesn’t fit, none of the other shirts will, probably. The dress is a bit looser, though.” She packs up the rest of the shirts, leaving the dress on the bed.

Eddie pulls it back off and hands it back to her, and reaches for the dress. He stops when he touches it, struck with the realization that he needs to take his pants off.

Not his underwear, though. He can cope. He takes a deep breath again — Mommy has always told him it helps with his anxiety, and it might be the one useful thing she’s told him to do — and undoes his jeans and kicks them off. His briefs are boring and white and seem fine for their current purposes, and his legs are… a little less hairy? He looks closer. Not less hairy, but the hair is a bit thinner, not quite as visible. Eddie’s more put out by that than he expected. He’d been proud of the hair he’s grown so fair.

Bev clears her throat, probably to indicate that Eddie is being weird and contemplative again, and Eddie takes the hint. He grabs the dress and pulls it on over his head. It’s stretchy, and fits a little better than the top, but there’s no support for his chest. Bev makes a twirling motion with her finger once the dress is on, and Eddie turns around for her and lets her tie the dress string. Looking down, it makes it seem a little more form-fitting. A bit nicer.

Even without a bra underneath, Eddie kind of likes it.

“It’s nice,” Bev says, and Eddie turns back around, letting her look him over. “Fits you, at least. But we need to go to Goodwill and get you a sports bra or something. You’re going to give yourself back problems.”

“Really? Does that happen?”

Bev laughs. “Yeah. I’ve never had that problem, but I know some people who have. Consider yourself lucky that this is just a joyride and not your entire life.”

For more reasons than one, Eddie thinks. He’s seen what Bev has been through. He loves her, but he wouldn’t want to live her life. (And the thought of how his mother would’ve been if he’d been a girl — if she’d had a million more reasons to tell him to be afraid — is an awful one.)

“Okay. Tomorrow?”

Bev nods, and puts the discarded camisole back in her bag. Eddie takes the hint and strips off the dress, grabbing his shirt off the floor and pulling it back on, and she packs the dress away, too. “I’ll ask Richie to get a t-shirt and shorts for you to sleep in and bring them down for you.”

“Thanks,” Eddie says, and Bev grins. She leans in and kisses his cheek, and he closes his eyes, trying not to get emotional.

“No problem. Oh, wait, one more thing.” She puts on her backpack and grabs a hair tie off her wrist, handing it to Eddie. “If it gets annoying.”

She goes back upstairs, and Eddie manages to pull the hair into a ponytail, with a bit of a struggle. His hair is ridiculously tangled; he probably needs to hack at it with a comb or something. He has no idea how anyone can manage this on a daily basis.

As if reading his mind, Bev comes back down with a change of clothes and a comb. “I’ll be back in the morning,” she says, and waves goodbye.

The shirt Richie offered is a _The Smiths_ shirt, way too big for either of them, and worn soft. Eddie wonders, as he puts it on, if Richie ever slept in it.

A few minutes later, when Richie comes downstairs, Eddie is struggling to comb the last section of his hair. He’s gone through most of it already, leaving a pile of hair on the bed. The hair is long enough to brush his collarbone, and now that it’s not a tangled mess, Eddie thinks it might actually look okay.

“How do people do this?” Eddie asks, yanking the comb through the last few inches. There’s one stubborn knot that he has to keep picking at. “Do I need to wash this? How do I even do that?”

“Are you seriously asking me?” Richie asks, and when Eddie looks up at him, he’s grinning, looking right at Eddie. Whatever part of Eddie that was afraid of Richie running, or Richie hating him, disappears. Eddie laughs, more relieved than he can ever remember feeling.

“Who the fuck else am I supposed to ask?” he asks, and Richie rolls his eyes.

“There’s a garbage can over there for your hairball,” Richie says, pointing to a metal can with cars painted on the outside. “I can steal some shampoo for you in the morning. My parents are home, by the way, so don’t come upstairs.”

“Got it.” Eddie pulls the comb through his hair and finally, _finally_ , it doesn’t catch on any knots. He pulls the last few strands of hair out of the comb — how much hair is he losing? Should he be worried? — and picks up the pile of hair. He wonders if this is just what girls deal with every day as he climbs off the bed and throws it in the garbage. When he pulls his hair into a ponytail again, it’s a lot easier.

“I should probably go upstairs,” Richie says. “But I’ll see you in the morning? I’ll pretend to throw up and skip school.”

“Sure. See you.” Eddie plucks at the hem of the shirt. “Thanks for the clothes.”

“No problem.” Richie hesitates, and then reaches out his hand for another fist bump. When Eddie pulls back his hand, he can feel the points where Richie touched him, like a faint electric shock.

It takes Eddie a long time to fall asleep.

*

A small part of Eddie had held out hope that he’d wake up back in his normal body. When he blinks awake, his chest hurting from sleeping on his stomach, he knows his hopes have been dashed. He buries his face in the pillow and groans.

There’s movement upstairs, footsteps and faint talking, the clatter of dishes and the sizzle of something cooking. Faintly, he can smell bacon and eggs. His stomach grumbles a bit as he sits up and rubs his eyes, his hair falling around his face.

He hopes Richie brings him some food. He hadn’t thought to ask.

It doesn’t take long for the sounds to fade away, a few goodbyes called through the house, and a few minutes after Eddie first woke up, Richie comes down the stairs with a plate of food, still in sleeping clothes.

“Told them I’m sick,” he says as Eddie takes the plate and starts eating. Hashbrowns, eggs, bacon, thick slices of white bread with jam — it’s the kind of food his mother would never let him eat. Greasy and toxic and terrible for him.

Eddie doesn’t think twice before diving into the plate.

“They bought it?” Eddie asks, his mouth full of hashbrowns.

“Yeah. Told me to get some rest.”

Eddie snorts and picks up the bread, taking a bite. The jam is strawberry and sticks to the inside of his mouth. “I’d be on the way to the hospital if I told my mom that.”

Richie doesn’t seem to know how to react to that, which is probably fair. He’s still standing there in front of Eddie, in boxers and an oversized shirt with a flame design. Which probably confirms Eddie’s theory that he’s slept in the shirt he gave Eddie. The thought makes him feel warm somewhere deep in his belly.

“Do you want to have a shower?” Richie asks after a long moment of slightly uncomfortable silence. Eddie nods, still shoveling food in his mouth. He should probably be embarrassed about this whole situation, sitting in bed in the wrong body and eating like a dying man, but this is Richie. He’s lost count of the number of times Richie has eaten bugs on a dare, or done dumb shit in front of everyone in school just to make him laugh. It’s hard to be embarrassed about anything in front of him.

Eddie realizes, as he’s finishing the plate, that a shower will involve seeing… a lot more of this body. Well. He’s going to have to do it sometime. He gathers yesterday’s clothes and follows Richie upstairs.

Richie sets him up with a new towel in his parents’ bathroom, where his mom keeps all of her hair stuff, apparently. After Richie leaves, Eddie picks up a few of the bottles and reads the backs, and eventually settles on a shampoo and conditioner of the same brand. Lavender-scented.

There’s only so long he can procrastinate getting undressed. There’s a full-length mirror on the wall of the bathroom, and as he pulls off his clothes, he tries and fails to avoid looking. The glances out of the corner of his eye are startling; he doesn’t recognize them as himself.

When he’s naked, he reaches into the shower and turns it on, and steps in front of the mirror before he can tell himself what a bad idea it is.

He’s seen bits and pieces. His face in various reflective surfaces, the new shape of his body when looking down. But the full picture is something entirely different. He’s looking at a stranger. It’s not his body. The size is similar, he thinks; the new face is close, with enough differences to startle him.

The breasts are… different than he expected. Every time he’s seen them, in the glimpses of Playboys and on the beach, they’ve been lifted with push-up bras, shaped perfectly, attached to the bodies of models. These are different, but not wrong, or worse. Just not what he’d expected.

Between his legs is probably the scariest part. He can’t see anything from here except a thatch of thick, dark hair. He places a hand on his stomach and lowers it until it brushes the top of the hair, and stops. His chest is tight, his breathing shallow.

The mirror starts to fog up from the shower, and Eddie turns away.

The actual business of showering goes surprisingly fine. The hair turns out to be a bigger issue than the rest of the body combined: Eddie ends up fumbling with several bottles at once and dripping shampoo into his eyes. When it’s finally rinsed out — and his eyes have stopped stinging — Eddie washes the rest of his body quickly and without stopping to pay attention. His soaped-up hand dips between his legs and back out, and he doesn’t think about how different it feels as he rinses.

He fumbles for the tap to turn the shower off as soon as he feels clean, and dries off as quickly as he can. It goes against everything he’s been taught to put on dirty clothes — he can hear his mother’s voice in the back of his head warning him of bacteria or what the hell ever — but it’s not like he has much of a choice.

Somehow, the hair is even more of a mess now, and dripping all over his shoulders even after he dried it. There’s a hairbrush on the counter, so he gives it another quick brush, and it seems a little better. Hopefully.

If he was ever tempted to grow out his hair to piss off his mother, this experience has already put him off it for life.

***

Richie has a car — well, it’s his dad’s old car and he’s allowed to use it for emergencies, and really, if this _isn’t_ an emergency, he’s not sure what is — which means that he’s the one taking Bev and Eddie shopping. There’s a mall about half an hour away in Bangor where they’re less likely to be recognized, and Eddie claims shotgun and spends most of the ride arguing with him about… something. Richie’s only half-paying attention, and he’s pretty sure Bev is asleep in the back.

Really, all he’s paying attention to is Eddie. His mind has pretty much mentally replaced the girl next to him with Eddie, enough that he almost forgets as they talk until he looks over and sees the unfamiliar profile illuminated by the painfully bright sun. The voice is different, but it’s still the way Eddie talks, fast and clever and a bit too loud.

It’s still his Eddie, even if he looks different.

The mall in Bangor is bigger and just a little bit nicer, and Richie trails behind Bev and Eddie as they head inside. It’s still early, and the only people he can see are an older couple wandering hand in hand and a frazzled mother pushing a baby in a stroller and dragging a toddler behind her. The toddler’s wails are background noise as Bev grabs Eddie’s hand and pulls him towards a thrift store. Richie lets them go ahead.

Richie finds the household goods aisle, and watches Eddie and Bev out of the corner of his eye as he browses for anything weird. Bev pulls a few things out and hands them to Eddie as she shuffles through the hangers with incredible speed and efficiency.

There’s not much in the way of weird, sadly. A chipped ashtray in the shape of an open mouth, a lamp with what looks like a real turtle shell base, a wall-mounted plaque with a protruding doll face. There’s a music box with a clown’s face leering up at him that makes him shiver and move to the next aisle.

When Richie is on the verge of giving up on an exciting find, he hears his name from across the store, and glances up to see Bev waving him towards the fitting rooms. Beside her, Eddie rolls his eyes and laughs.

“Really?” he says to Bev, and Richie grins, putting down the mildly creepy doll face plaque.

“Is this the makeover part of the movie?” he asks as he makes his way over to them and joins them on the way to the fitting rooms. “Is Eddie going to be the prettiest girl at the — _ow_.” Apparently the body change did not make Eddie’s elbows any less sharp.

“Your opinion is important,” Bev says with exaggerated seriousness, and Eddie laughs again.

“Richie will just tell me to get whatever shows off my tits,” he says, and Richie is surprised by how little he blushes as he says it. Maybe it’s Bev being there, or maybe he’s just getting a little more comfortable in this body.

“I would _never_ ,” Richie says with all the offended hurt he can muster, placing his hand over his heart. He jumps in front of Eddie and leans down towards him, practically prostrating himself in the middle of the aisle. “Nothing is more important to me than your modesty, my dearest Edward, my eyes would _never_ wander—”

“Fuck off,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes with his best attempt to hide a smile. It’s still there, though. Richie can call that a win.

As it turns out, none of the shirts really show off Eddie’s tits. After Bev goes into the stall to adjust the bra — Richie doesn’t make any jokes about that — Richie’s surprised by how modest the offerings are. Mostly normal shirts.

“The last two,” Bev says when Eddie comes out in a long-sleeved black turtleneck that looks cozier than anything Richie has ever owned. “They’ll fit me and I can take them after.”

“Ulterior motive, Marsh?” Richie asks as Eddie goes up to the mirror and spins around, looking at the shirt from all angles. He’s clearly getting more comfortable looking at himself.

Bev shrugs. “Maybe.”

They strike gold on the second pair of jeans, too, and that’s all they really need. Eddie pays, and they head to the food court, where Richie treats them all to a grand meal with his money from working a few weeks in the summer. (Under the table, on the least safe construction site he’d ever seen. He’d told Eddie he was car-washing; if Eddie had seen the state of the place, he would’ve had a heart attack.)

Well, it’s not quite a grand meal. Pizza and big soft pretzels and Dairy Queen for dessert. It still feels like the grandest meal he’s had in a while. Seeing Eddie’s nose scrunch up while he laughs, smearing pizza sauce on it when he looks away, and getting slapped on the arm in return, is worth more than diamonds.

It’s nice to be together, too, the three of them. All of the Losers hang out when they can, but they usually split into subsets: Richie and Eddie, Bill and Mike and Stan, Bev and Ben. Richie likes Bev, even after their rough start, but he hasn’t spent as much time with her alone or nearly alone.

Richie gives Eddie the money for the Dairy Queen when they finish their lunch, and when he goes to buy it, Richie leans towards Bev. “Thanks,” he says. “I don’t think we would’ve been able to figure this out on our own.” He glances at Eddie, now in the black turtleneck and new, form-fitting jeans, and tries to ignore the uncomfortable swooping in his stomach.

Bev stirs the ice in her soda, following his gaze and watching Eddie as well for a moment before looking back at Richie. “Yeah. No problem. What are friends for, right?” She pauses, and looks at Eddie again for a moment. Without looking back at Richie, she says, “You’re okay, right?”

Richie laughs, tugging at his shirt collar. “Me? I’m not the one who got magically body swapped. I’m fine.”

Bev sighs. “You know what I mean.”

Richie kind of knows what she means. He kind of thinks he knows what she’s implying.

He’s not sure he likes where it’s going.

“I’m fine! Dandy! Right as rain. Hey, Eds!” He calls out the last bit, and Eddie looks back. His words die in his throat.

The freckles are exactly the same. He can see it from here.

“What?” Eddie asks, annoyed.

Richie offers a weak thumbs-up. “Thanks, dude.”

“You’re so fucking weird,” Eddie says, and flips him off.

Richie’s pretty sure that did not prove what he intended. He tries not to look at Bev. “I said I’m fine.”

Even without looking, he can feel her rolling her eyes.

*

Richie takes a scenic route back to Derry. Bev takes the backseat and stretches out, bare feet propped up on the door, sunglasses over her eyes. Eddie is less chatty this time, leaning out the open window, his hair flying around his face. It’s hot, but not muggy, and the sky is clear and blue; a perfect autumn day.

When they finally roll past the _Welcome to Derry_ sign and onto Main Street, Richie notices something. Fresh, bright white posters, taped to every surface he can see, the ends fluttering in the wind. He pulls over, ignoring Eddie’s mumbled protest, and gets out.

 **MISSING** , the nearest poster reads. **EDWARD KASPBRAK, 17 YRS OLD**. There’s a blown-out, grainy picture of Eddie, maybe his last school picture, looking wildly uncomfortable in a collared shirt with his hair slicked back.

“Oh, fuck,” Richie says, and pulls down the nearest poster.

“What’s — oh, fuck,” Eddie says, as Richie gets back in the car and hands the poster to him. “God, I am so fucking dead as soon as I get back.”

“One thing at a time,” Bev says from the back seat. She sits up and kicks the back of Richie’s seat. “Hurry up, dude, I need a smoke.”

Richie rolls his eyes and drives.

*

The phone is ringing when Richie opens the front door of his house, and he dives for the phone and manages to pick up on the last ring. “Tozier household,” he says, remembering to sound a bit pathetic just in time.

“How are you feeling, sweetie?” his mom asks. “I didn’t wake you up, did I? You took a minute to pick up.”

“I was just in the bathroom, mom, don’t worry about it.”

“Did you throw up again? Do you want me to come home?”

Richie winces and closes his eyes, leaning his head against the wall. This is what he gets for faking illness so rarely: real concern. “No, I’m okay. I just didn’t hear the phone.”

“If you say so,” she says doubtfully. Richie hears some shuffling around in the kitchen and restrains himself from yelling at Eddie and Bev to stay out of the liquor cupboard. “If you’re sure it’s okay…”

“Totally,” Richie says. “I just need to rest.” He coughs, deliberately, and hopes it doesn’t sound too fake. “You and dad can go out tonight, I know you were planning on it.”

“Right. Oh, wait, you haven’t heard — Eddie is missing.”

Richie’s stomach drops out of his body. “What?”

“He didn’t come home from school yesterday. The police haven’t filed it yet, but Mrs. Kaspbrak is putting up posters and calling everyone she can think of. I think she talked to you, but you haven’t seen Eddie, right? Not since school yesterday?”

A muffled laugh from the kitchen, followed by shushing. It’s Eddie; Richie already knows Eddie’s new voice, as easily as his own. “No, I haven’t. I’m sure he’s okay, though. Probably just had a fight.”

“Sure,” his mom says, sounding less hopeful than she probably should. “Well, I won’t see you tonight, then. Don’t play videogames all night. Try to get some sleep.”

“I will. Love you.”

“Love you too. Bye.” The line goes dead, and Richie hangs up.

In the kitchen, Eddie is pouring an overflowing bowl of sugary cereal while Bev watches, her expression somewhere between horror and delight. “You’ve unleashed a monster,” she says when Richie comes in, and Eddie rolls his eyes as he grabs the milk.

“Richie lets me eat all the shit my mom won’t let me eat because he’s a pushover,” Eddie says, pouring the milk. He puts the milk and cereal away — well, he actually leaves the cereal in the fridge as well, but close enough — and digs in.

“It’s true,” Richie says. “His mom is a fascist or something. She won’t buy anything with refined sugar in it.”

“So I come here to OD,” Eddie says, mouth full of cereal, and makes eye contact with Richie as he does. He attempts a grin, and milk dribbles out of the corner of his mouth.

“Happy to help,” Richie says.

“You guys are so fucking weird,” Bev says. “I’m going for a smoke and a bike ride. Richie, when you call the others, don’t tell them what you told me. Let them find out in person. I’ll be back at five or whenever you order pizza.”

“That’s the third pizza meal in a row,” Eddie points out, talking through a mouthful of cereal, as Bev heads out with a wave. “I can feel my arteries clogging.”

“You have a faceful of Lucky Charms, I don’t think you have any room to talk.”

Eddie flips him off with his spoon in the same hand. It’s about the least threatening thing Richie has ever seen.

*

Richie takes Bev’s advice. He calls Bill, Mike, Ben, and Stan, and doesn’t tell any of them why it’s necessary that they come right over and chip in for pizza, just that they really need to. “Losers stick together,” he says when Bill seems to be wavering. “Look, it’s important, okay?”

“I’ll b-b-be there,” Bill says. Richie uses the same technique again with the others, and it’s surprisingly successful.

“Does this have anything to do with Eddie being missing?” Stan asks mildly when Richie calls him, last on the list.

“Maybe,” Richie says. “You’ll be here?”

“Have you ever given a straight answer in your life?” Stan gripes. “Fine. See you in a bit.”

Once that’s done, it’s just fighting Eddie for the TV remote on the basement couch and waiting for them to show up. When Eddie wins the fight, he stares at the outline of his face, and tries to suppress the overwhelming feelings that threaten to take him over.

*

Mike is the first one to show up, at the same time that Bev gets back from her ride. When Richie opens the door, Bev looks casual, and Mike looks extremely nervous.

“Did you say something?” Richie asks her, unable to help himself. Mike’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Nope.” She lets Mike in before her, and gives Richie a shit-eating grin as she steps inside and lets him close the door. “You’re really in for something,” Bev adds as she kicks off her boots, and Richie rolls his eyes.

“Did something happen?” Mike asks worriedly.

“Sort of,” Richie says. “Maybe I should wait for everyone—”

“Oh, come on,” Bev says, and grabs Mike’s arm and leads him down to the basement. Mike seems more than willing to be led. Richie decides to let her handle it.

Bill and Stan show up together, and Ben a couple minutes after, before Richie has taken them downstairs. He hasn’t heard any screaming from Mike, and he hasn’t come running upstairs in a panic, which Richie hopes is a good sign.

“What’s going on?” Ben asks once everyone is in. Richie jerks his head towards the basement, and lets them follow him down. The first thing he sees is Mike, sitting on the couch, looking a bit shell-shocked, and then there’s Eddie, leaning against the TV stand next to Bev, head down.

“Who—” Bill starts, and then Eddie looks up, and they all freeze. In this context, it’s probably clear. Richie moves to sit down next to Mike on the couch, and the others stay where they were on the stairs, locked in Eddie’s gaze.

“Eddie?” Ben manages after probably a full thirty seconds. Eddie nods, and it’s like the whole room lets out a collective, shocked breath.

Out of all of them, it actually seems like Ben is taking it the best: shocked, but capable of speech. Bill’s mouth opens and closes like he can’t manage to get a speaking breath, and Stan is paler than Richie has ever seen him, the faint scars surrounding his face vivid in the dim light. He’s gripping the stair rail so hard that Richie can see the muscles in his hands flexing.

“Okay,” Bev says after a few more painfully long moments. “Can we sit down and try to figure out what to do, please? Mental breakdowns later.” She grabs a seat on the other couch, and Ben and Bill make their way down the stairs to join her. Eddie sits between Richie and Mike, and Richie tries to ignore the heat of his leg pressed up next to his.

Stan is the last holdout on the stairs, still staring, still looking dangerously close to passing out. It’s the last thing he wants to do, but Richie gets up and goes over to him, placing his hand over Stan’s on the railing. Stan’s breathing is fast and shallow, the hand by his side shaking like a leaf.

“Stan,” Richie says, “we’re trying to figure it out, okay?”

“I don’t understand,” he says. “This isn’t — this can’t happen. What if it happens to me?”

It’s like a bucket of ice water being thrown over him. Richie hadn’t even thought of that — of the possibility that it could happen to the others. Of the fear they might feel of waking up one day with their body gone. He’d never considered it himself, but he can understand the terror of possible rejection, the horror at loss of control.

“It won’t,” Richie says as confidently as he can manage. “I swear, Stan, okay? It won’t happen to you. We’re going to figure out how to fix it and it won’t happen to anyone else.”

Stan stays there, shaking, breathing so rapidly that Richie is a little worried he’s going to fall over. But slowly, slowly, the trembles slow down, and his breathing, too. He pulls his hand out from under Richie’s on the railing, and Richie moves to let him down the stairs.

“Okay,” Richie says as Stan takes the armchair. “Firstly: this is a secret, and we need to figure out how to fix this, together. And secondly, I’m ordering pizza. Please chip in if you can and let me know what you want.”

Shocker of shockers, no one chips in. The sketchy construction money is turning out to be a lifesaver.

*

Two hours later, the pizza is gone, Ben and Mike are comparing their fourth page of scrawled theories, and Eddie is hanging upside down on the couch, his head by Richie’s knee. Richie is trying to participate in the discussion, but Eddie is there every time he looks down, and it’s a little distracting.

They’ve made detailed notes of everything unusual Eddie did in the days leading up to the transformation. They’ve noted the turtle he saw, and at least five different theories revolve around it, from unknown turtle pheromones to the turtle maybe possessing a godlike power and no knowledge of how to use it. Eddie has confirmed to the others that yes, his dick is gone, and no, it’s not actually that exciting to have boobs. Bev looked a little smug at that.

Basically, they’ve gone in circles and come back to what they actually know: nothing.

“Can we give up?” Stan asks. “I don’t think we’re getting much else done without practical experimentation. Also, I think we’re all exhausted.”

“Experimentation?” Bev asks. “What the hell kind of experiments do you want to run?”

“G-guys,” Bill says before Stan decides to snap back. “We may not have answers, but we can come b-back tomorrow and keep working on it. We’ll figure s-something out. We always do, right?”

There’s a murmur of assent, and no one points out the sample size of one in this situation.

“Bill’s right,” Eddie says from where he’s hanging. “We can come back to it tomorrow, and — I’m just glad you guys aren’t running and screaming, you know?”

“We’re losers, bro,” Mike says with a grin, and pats Eddie’s shoulder, the closest thing he can reach. “We’ll stick together.”

“Let’s watch some movies,” Richie says with some level of attempted authority. It’s his basement, at least. “And we’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

***

After the others head home and it’s just Eddie and Richie on the couch in the basement, Eddie starts to feel something. Half horrified and half excited, he starts to realize that this is what it feels like to get turned on in this body.

His feet are on Richie’s lap. Richie is splayed back across the couch, half-watching whatever horror movie is on right now, and one of his hands is loosely wrapped around Eddie’s ankle. Normally, this would be when Eddie would start kicking, talking about Richie’s mom, doing anything to distract himself and Richie from the imminent, obvious problem of popping a boner from close contact with his best friend. But in this body, no one else can tell. He presses his thighs together and shivers a little as the feeling intensifies. The fabric of his borrowed sweatpants is pressing up at just the right angle, and after a few moments of focusing on the sensations — of the pressure, the warmth of Richie’s body, the way his fingers curve around Eddie’s ankle — he realizes he’s _wet_.

 _Oh, fuck_ , Eddie thinks, and then — _what the fuck do I do now?_ He knows what he’d do with his own body, if he got to this state: jerk off in bed, hoping that his mother wouldn't burst in through the door with no lock. He’s not quite sure how to do that with this anatomy. He’d asked Bev some questions, but that definitely had not been one of them.

“Eds?” Richie says, glancing over at him. “You good?”

Right. Eddie’s breathing has sped up, and his hands are fisted in the fabric of his sweats, subtly pulling it in closer to his — fuck it. His cunt. He’s so wet he’s afraid it’s going to leak through.

“Fine,” he says, and tries to swing his legs off of Richie’s lap, to — he’s not sure. Hide? Rut up against a pillow like every stereotype he’s laughed at before? He’s sure as fuck not laughing now. But Richie holds tight to his ankle and shifts on the couch, pulling on Eddie’s legs until Eddie’s almost sitting in his lap, Eddie’s thighs on top of his. Which is about the last place Eddie needs to be right now, extremely turned on and desperately trying not to think about the stupid, glasses-wearing, mother-seducing reason for it.

“Look, dude, I just want to help,” Richie says. “Whatever I can do until we figure this out. Okay?” He puts his hand on Eddie’s thigh for a moment, maybe six inches away from where Eddie desperately wants it to be.

“I’ve gotta—” Eddie mumbles, and gestures vaguely upstairs. “Bathroom.” Do cold showers work for girls? Eddie’s about to find out.

“You went five minutes ago. What’s wrong?”

Eddie tries to swing his legs down to the floor, and Richie catches him and pulls him back. Eddie’s not entirely sure how it happens, but somehow, in between Eddie pushing off and landing on the floor and Richie shouting _I’m trying to help you!,_ Eddie ends up on the floor with Richie on top of him. He tries to scramble out and Richie grabs his wrists, pinning him down.

“Gotcha,” Richie says. His eyes are bright and glassy and he’s breathing faster and Eddie is going to die.

“Let me up,” Eddie says. His cunt _throbs_ , like it can feel the proximity of Richie’s dick. Maybe it can, for all he knows.

“Hm. Don’t think so.” Richie grins like the asshole he is, and slowly lowers himself down, laying directly on top of Eddie.

It’s normal. It’s the kind of asshole thing Richie would do, using his weight against Eddie to win a fight. Except now Eddie can feel his dick through his shorts, and he’s so goddamn wet, and he can’t stop his hips from thrusting _up_.

Richie goes still, staring down at him, a flush starting in his cheeks and spreading down his neck. “Um, Eds?” he says, his voice pitched an octave higher than usual. And Eddie realizes that not only did Richie feel the involuntary movement of his hips, but that Eddie is probably wet enough that Richie can feel it soaking through

Of all the possible times for the earth to open up and swallow him, Eddie thinks this would be the best. He closes his eyes and tries to wriggle out again so he can hide and maybe never emerge, but he can’t move an inch.

“Let me go,” he manages, and then he feels something.

Richie is hard.

He notices probably at the same time that Richie does, and Richie lets go of his wrists and gets off him before he can do anything. “I’ve gotta—” Richie says, stumbling to his feet, and all of the sudden, Eddie is done. Richie didn’t let him go, and he’s not going to let Richie go, either.

Eddie gets to his feet and grabs Richie’s arm before Richie can make it up the stairs. Richie turns to him, opening his mouth to speak, and Eddie grabs his hair and pulls him down into a kiss.

It’s not a very good kiss, objectively. There’s a lot of teeth, it takes a minute to align their faces properly, and it’s definitely a bit wetter than Eddie would like.

It’s also Eddie’s first kiss. He thinks it might be Richie’s, too.

Richie looks shell-shocked when Eddie pulls away, breathing hard. “I think,” Eddie says, with more confidence than he feels, “that you should fuck me.”

Richie reacts like he’s been punched in the gut, breathing out in a gasp of shock. “What—”

“I want to know what it feels like,” Eddie says, and it’s only half true. The other half is that he’s been thinking about Richie’s dick since he first started jerking off. Specifically Richie’s dick in his mouth, or in his ass, or fucking Richie himself, even.

He’s never imagined Richie inside his cunt, but life never goes the way you expect.

“Okay — okay. Fuck. Um. I don’t have condoms,” Richie says.

“It’s not like I’m going to be in this body long enough to get pregnant,” Eddie points out. At least, he very much hopes not. There’s only so long he can exist on Tozier leftovers in this basement.

Richie runs a hand through his hair a few times, and takes a deep breath. “This is what you want?”

“Weren’t you the one asking if I played with my tits when you first saw me?” Eddie asks. “I thought you’d approve of giving it a test run.”

“Fair enough. Have you… jerked off? How would you even do that?”

Eddie winces. “I don’t know. But I think we can figure it out. Come on.” He tugs on Richie’s arm, and Richie follows him onto the guest bed.

They both shed their clothes quickly, and by now Eddie’s used to this body enough that it doesn’t make him dizzy to look down at it, so he can focus entirely on Richie. He’s been filling out more over the last few months, and he’s started senior year at six foot two and starting to fill out in the shoulders. Eddie gets a flash of those shoulders holding his legs open, Richie’s mouth on his cunt, and presses a hand over it, hoping to relieve the pressure. Richie stops undressing, shorts half off, to watch as Eddie grinds down onto his palm, legs shaking with effort.

“Fuck,” Eddie groans, and Richie finishes getting naked at the speed of light, tossing his underwear somewhere into the distance and climbing onto the bed. He’s hard, not as big as his bragging would imply but certainly a respectable size, and Eddie desperately wants it inside him. He’s not picky about where.

Richie pauses, kneeling in front of him, and Eddie pulls his hand away, wiping off the stickiness on the bed sheet. “Can I—” Richie starts, and then goes red again, looking away.

“Yes,” Eddie says. “Anything, god, I can’t fucking stand this.” He leans forward and grabs Richie’s hair, pulling him closer, and Richie falls forward, his hands on Eddie’s knees, spreading his legs apart.

“Okay,” Richie says, and gets down on his belly, and licks a stripe up Eddie’s cunt.

Eddie has to bite down on his hand to keep from crying out. The other hand tightens in Richie’s hair as Richie licks and licks and hits a spot that makes his toes curl and his eyes roll back in his head. “There,” he gasps, “right there, please—” and Richie focuses on the spot, sucking it into his mouth. All of Eddie’s thoughts abandon him; all he can think about is Richie’s mouth. All he can say is _fuck_ and _more_ and _don’t stop, don’t you dare fucking stop, Trashmouth_ , as the feeling intensifies. His hips rock into Richie’s face and Richie keeps going and Eddie thinks about Richie’s stupid eyes and smile and his stupid dick that he finally got to see and comes, legs shaking, gasping painfully hard, nearly pulling out a handful of Richie’s hair as the feeling fills his entire body.

He’s come before, obviously. More times than he can count. But it was never anything like this.

He goes boneless as the last waves of pleasure fade away, and Richie sits up. His face is wet and shiny and Eddie can’t stop himself from pulling Richie in to kiss him, tasting the unfamiliar flavour on his lips.

“Good?” Richie asks almost shyly as he pulls away and Eddie flops back on the bed again dramatically.

“Yes, oh my god, I never want to move again.”

“I’m glad,” Richie says, and then, “So, uh, I can go if you want—”

“What? I said I wanted you to fuck me.”

Richie stares at him like he’s grown a second head. “But you already—”

“I’m not fucking done, Richie, I swear to god. Let me catch my breath and then you can pop my cherry.” The phrase feels a little gross to Eddie, but it seems to excite Richie some; his dick twitches a little, and Eddie remembers, suddenly, how desperate he is to have it inside him. The need had been temporarily eclipsed by the all-encompassing joys of Richie’s tongue.

Eddie really does need to catch his breath, so he grabs a sip of water and watches Richie as he waits to feel ready again. “You can touch my tits if you want,” he says, and Richie takes him up on it, holding them in his hand, rolling the nipple between his fingers. It feels… fine. Not bad, but not particularly arousing.

What is more arousing is Richie leaning in to kiss his neck, and going hard at it. Eddie realizes after a moment what Richie is doing, and grins to himself as Richie sucks and bites at the skin for a minute or so before pulling away.

“So possessive,” Eddie teases, and Richie shrugs.

“I’ve just never given a hickey before,” Richie says, which honestly makes more sense. If anyone, out of the two of them, Eddie is the jealous one. “Ready to go?” Richie asks, and Eddie nods.

They arrange themselves on the bed, Eddie propped up on some pillows, Richie between his legs. Richie leans over him, bracing himself on either side of Eddie’s head, and asks, “Okay?”

“Yeah.” Eddie lifts his hips in invitation. “Please.”

Richie nods, and Eddie holds his breath as he lines up and starts to move, inch by inch, inside Eddie.

There has never been anything inside Eddie before. This body is so new that he hadn’t even thought about poking a finger up there to see what all the fuss was about. Which means everything about this feeling is entirely new. The stretch, the fullness, the feeling of Richie’s dick up against the apparently very sensitive inner walls. Richie pushes in until he stops, holding still, all the way inside.

Eddie never wants him to leave.

“Good?” Richie asks, his voice shaky. Eddie can’t tell if he’s trying not to come immediately, or if he’s having trouble holding himself up, or if he just wants to move. Or all of them above.

“Good,” Eddie says, and moves his legs, wrapping them around Richie’s back. “Fuck me, please.”

Richie laughs, and obliges. And if Eddie thought it felt good when Richie was just inside him, he’s immediately proven wrong. The thrusts feel incredible. It’s not as overwhelming and intense as Richie’s mouth, but it’s all-encompassing, making him pant towards the ceiling and pull Richie closer for more, more, more.

It’s clear that Richie is going as hard as he can, and equally clear that he won’t last long. Eddie reaches down to find the sensitive spot from before and rubs down on it, and in combination with the thrusting, it makes his eyes roll back in his head, seeing something like fireworks. This orgasm sneaks up on him, and he doesn’t even realize it’s happening until he starts to shake, clenching down on Richie’s dick and whimpering through his teeth to keep from screaming. Richie buries himself in Eddie and groans, long and low, and Eddie feels him coming too, his cock pulsing inside him.

For a few long moments, they stay there, gasping and sticky, and then Richie pulls out. The sound is disgusting, and when Eddie looks down he can see come dripping out of him. He makes a face.

“Here, let me—” Richie says, and fumbles for something on the floor, coming up with his pair of shorts from earlier. It’s not terribly romantic, Eddie thinks, but there’s something tender about the way he wipes between Eddie’s legs with it before tossing it back on the floor. He sits back on his heels, and looks at Eddie, and Eddie speaks before he can.

“Thank you. It was great,” Eddie says, entirely honestly, and Richie smiles wider than Eddie’s ever seen. He leans in to kiss Eddie and Eddie leans into it, tasting sweat and his own strange fluids on Richie’s lips.

He’s not sure when this situation is going to resolve itself, but he feels a whole lot better about it for now.

*

When Eddie wakes up, the first thing that he notices is that Richie is still there. Snoring loudly, one hand resting on Eddie’s hip. It makes him feel warm, somewhere inside, and he smiles without meaning to, reaching down to lay his hand over Richie’s.

The second thing he notices is that his body is back to normal.

He bolts upright in bed, grabbing at his hair. Back to a normal length. He pulls off the shirt he slept in — Richie’s, again — and his chest is back to normal. Tossing it aside, he reaches into his shorts, and breathes a sigh of relief when he feels his dick. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so happy to touch it.

“Mmff,” Richie groans, burying his face in his pillow. “It’s Saturday, let me sleep.”

“Richie, I’m back to normal,” Eddie says, and Richie turns his head, cracking one eye open.

“Oh, shit, yes!” Richie sits up, pulling his hand off Eddie’s hip at top speed. “Dude! I’m so glad!” He throws his arms around Eddie, and Eddie hugs him back, still not entirely sure how to process. They’re both shirtless, Richie only in boxers and Eddie in shorts. And they just had sex.

Eddie’s stomach drops out of him.

They had sex, because he was a girl. And it’s never going to happen again.

“Thank you,” he says, pulling out of the hug. “I don’t know what you did, but thank you.”

“You can just say my great dick skills, man,” Richie says, and immediately goes bright red. Eddie laughs and climbs off the bed.

_Never again. He’ll never look at me like that again._

“Time to go face the music, I guess. Can you call Bev and thank her for me? I don’t think I’ll be allowed a phone call for the next month.”

“Sure.” Richie is looking at him with something almost like concern as Eddie gets dressed. Eddie doesn’t like it. It feels too much like being pitied. “She might be relieved enough to let you off easy.”

Eddie fumbles for his socks, and wonders if he should’ve borrowed Richie’s washing machine in the couple of days he was here. Oh well. “I wouldn’t count on it. See you at school. Or, uh, later.”

He heads out of the basement at record speed, leaving Richie behind. He doesn’t want Richie to see his face right now. Whatever it’s doing, it’s not good.

*

As it turns out, Richie is actually closer to being right, which annoys him until he reminds himself he’s being spared a month on lockdown.

His mother screams when she opens the door and he’s standing there, alternating between sobbing, berating him, and calling various people to tell them her darling _Eddie-bear is home, he’s safe, I was sure he was gone, I didn’t know what I was going to do!_ It’s terrible, and all Eddie wants to do is shower and put on some clean clothes as she bustles around the kitchen to make him breakfast.

As he starts to eat his oatmeal, he has a fleeting moment of wondering if Richie’s come is still inside him, somewhere. The idea of it drifting around his intestines makes him gag, and that makes his mother gasp in horror and run over to check on him, licking her thumb and cleaning non-existent dirt off his face while she’s there.

It’s stifling. Eddie has always hated it, but two days away was almost enough to start forgetting what it’s like.

The punishment is not much, by his mother’s standards. His bike is locked up and she’ll be driving him to school and back for the next week, and he can’t go anywhere else. She tells him no TV, which really means that he’ll be forced to sit in the living room for two hours after dinner every night and watch her soaps with her. And no phone privileges.

Eddie fully expected it, but he still sneaks downstairs as soon as she drives off to take down some of the Missing posters. He dials Richie and gnaws on his thumbnail until Richie picks up.

“Tozier household,” Richie says, out of breath. Eddie wonders if he ran to the phone, making sure he got there before his parents.

“It’s me,” Eddie says. “You were right. One week.”

“Fuck, yeah,” Richie says, and then, off to the side, “Sorry, mom. It’s Bill.”

“Wow, mixing me up with Bill the morning after we had sex?” Eddie asks, and immediately wants to jump off the nearest cliff. From the painful silence on the other end of the line, he’s not the only one. _Goddamn it_ , he mouths, and hits his forehead against the wall, a little too hard. He’s seen Richie do it before in frustration, and unfortunately gotten in the habit himself.

“You know me,” Richie says after far too long. “I’m so — uh, busy, that it’s hard to keep track.”

“Sure.” More painfully awkward silence. Eddie wonders if he can maybe sink through the floor. “Uh, I don’t know when she’ll be home, so can you still call Bev for me?”

“Sure. Why did you call me?”

“Just wanted to let you know.” _And hear your voice._ God, Eddie feels like a romance novel protagonist, swooning after a prince. It’s pathetic. “You can tell the others,” he adds, lamely. “Let them know I turned back and everything is fine.”

“Everything in working order?”

“Yes.”

“Have you checked?”

Eddie’s mouth goes dry as his mind fills with images. Richie with his mouth around Eddie’s dick, eyes wide and adoring as he looks up at Eddie; his dick sinking into Richie as Richie’s hands fist the sheets, as he loses control for Eddie. _Not what he meant_ , he tries to tell himself, but who is he kidding. Richie _always_ means sex.

“Fuck off,” he says, with more heat than he probably should have. From Richie’s surprised silence, it doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Okay, man. I’ll tell people. Have a good — week. Bye.”

“Bye,” Eddie says, but the line is dead. Richie has already hung up.

Eddie hits his forehead against the wall again. It hurts, and he probably deserves it.

*

In his room that night, Eddie does not jerk off to Richie.

He tries Playboy models first, and doesn’t get very far. His mind wanders: a strong hand, a deep laugh, a muscled back and broad shoulders. For once, he lets it, and stays on that. His hand works up and down his dick, slick with lotion, as he thinks of a mouth around him, strong arms pinning down his hips. It’s a good image, and it’s almost enough.

When he’s getting close to the edge, the image changes. His dick inside someone, them clenching around him, pulling him closer. Begging him for more. He’s so close that he can’t stop it as he imagines himself lifting Richie’s waist and fucking him the way he wants, the way he _needs_ to be wrecked—

He comes all over his hand, and stares up at the ceiling in disgust.

*

It’s not just disgust, really, Eddie thinks as he climbs into the passenger seat Monday morning. He’s been trying to avoid the mental topic of Richie all weekend, with some level of success; in his attempt to get back into his mother’s good books, he’s been cleaning and organizing, almost obsessively. It’s been a good distraction, and far more appealing than his homework.

But now he’s about to see Richie again, and he’s back to psychoanalyzing himself. It’s not just overwhelming self-disgust he’s feeling. There’s a lot of that, but a part of him is mourning, too. He’s sad, because he got what he didn’t even realize he wanted: he got Richie. And now he’ll never have Richie again.

And then he remembers that he tricked Richie, that Richie didn’t do it knowing Eddie actually _likes_ him. That Richie did it as a favor, and would be horrified if he knew how Eddie feels. Back to the self-disgust: he hurt Richie, and Richie doesn’t even know it.

He’s the worst possible friend in the world.

His mother drops him off right at the front of the school, in front of everyone, and Eddie tries to avoid the curious eyes as he ducks out of the car. He can’t see any of his friends, so he heads inside and makes a beeline to his locker. If he’s lucky, he won’t have to interact with anyone before class.

“Hey, Eduardo!”

Or not.

Eddie closes his locker, and there’s Richie, leaning against the locker beside it. Eddie’s stomach swoops and he wants to slap himself. _Not okay_.

“Hi,” Eddie says, and tries to push past him. Richie puts a hand on his shoulder and shoves him back, brows raised.

“So, how was it?” Richie asks. “Lots of tears? Did mommy dearest think she’d never see her baby again?’

“Obviously.” Eddie starts walking, and Richie falls into step beside him. “You were right, I guess. She was so relieved that she let me off easy.”

“Hell yeah, she did. Of course I was right. When are you going to learn that I’m always right?” Richie gesticulates wildly as he speaks, almost knocking someone’s hat off. Eddie hates how cute he finds it.

“You got lucky this time.”

“Hell yeah I did,” Richie says, eyebrows wiggling, and Eddie shoves his shoulder, hard. He’s surprised by how much it hurts to see Richie joking about it. Knowing that it’ll be a constant joke, in a year or so, when they fully get over how weird it was.

“Fuck off,” he says, gentler this time, and Richie laughs.

“Okay. If it’s only a week, Losers party at my place on Saturday?”

“Sure.” The conversation feels like poking a wound; Eddie needs to get out of it. “See you.”

He ducks into his classroom, and doesn’t look back.

*

It’s not easy to avoid Richie the whole next week, but somehow Eddie manages. He eats his home-packed lunches in the bathroom, takes different routes during passing periods, sits as far away from Richie as he can in their shared classes. He can tell, by Wednesday, that Richie is noticing, but he can’t bring himself to stop. It hurts too much.

By Thursday, Richie is clearly desperate. He chases Eddie down a hall and almost makes them both late to class, and when Eddie gets home, he calls no less than five times, his mother getting more irate every time she answers. On the fifth, she threatens to extend Eddie’s lockdown, and the phone stays silent after that.

Eddie goes to bed that night with a heavy, uncomfortable feeling in his stomach that might be guilt.

Richie doesn’t try at all in school on Friday, and Eddie almost thinks he’ll be okay. As he eats a cup of jello in front of one of his mother’s soaps, he can’t stop remembering a week ago. Richie’s head between his legs. Richie’s face when he was inside Eddie.

The bouncing between arousal and painful guilt feel like they’re eating away at Eddie’s insides. He excuses himself early, citing homework, and ends up falling into a fitful, anxious sleep before ten.

He wakes up to the faint sounds of pebbles clattering against his window.

Eddie rolls out of bed, heart hammering, and stumbles over to the window. There’s Richie, on the ground, throwing rocks up at him. Eddie wrenches the window open.

“What the _hell_?” he snaps in his best whisper-shout.

“Let me in,” Richie says, and picks up another pebble. “I can do this all night.”

“Your arm will get tired in five minutes.”

“I can take breaks,” Richie snaps, and drops his arm. The pebble falls from his fingers. “Damn it. Eddie, tell me to fuck off if you really want me to, but I think we need to talk.”

The thing is, Richie isn’t really wrong. And Eddie would do just about anything to get out of this miserably guilty experience that is his current life. Maybe clearing the air will help, even if it feels like ripping out his organs.

“Fine,” Eddie says. “Come to the back door.”

From the look on Richie’s face, he wasn’t expecting that, and hurries around before Eddie even leaves the window, like he’s worried Eddie will change his mind. Eddie wonders if he’s made a stupid fucking decision, beats himself up for it for a few seconds, and goes to let Richie in.

When they’re back in Eddie’s room, Eddie turns on a lamp so they can see, and Richie says, “You've been avoiding me.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, and Richie blinks at him.

“I had a whole speech,” he says, and Eddie shrugs.

“I’m sorry. I just… didn’t know how to deal.”

“No shit,” Richie says, kicking off his shoes and getting on Eddie’s bed. Eddie leans against his dresser, watching. “I mean, I thought we were okay? And then you just wouldn’t even look at me.”

Eddie wants his inhaler. His chest hurts like he’s going to have a panic attack. _Deep breaths_ , he reminds himself, _deep and steady_. It doesn’t really work. It still feels like a vise is squeezing out all his air.

“Did you not want to have sex?” Richie blurts out, and Eddie stops breathing fully for a moment. “I’m sorry. I don’t — I thought you wanted it, but if you didn’t, I’m so goddamn sorry, and I don’t know how I can make it up to you, but—”

“No,” Eddie says, cutting Richie off. “Richie, no — god. I wanted it, okay?” Eddie looks down. “I wanted it, and I — I shouldn’t have wanted it. I took advantage of you.”

“What?” Richie stares at him, horrified. “You — Jesus Christ, no, you didn’t. I wanted it.”

“No, you wanted to have sex to try out my body, but — you don’t know.” This is officially the worst conversation Eddie has ever had. He wants to leave his body forever. “I wanted — I wanted you, okay? I wanted you, and you don’t want me, and that’s fine, but I took advantage of you.”

Richie is still staring, and Eddie can’t decipher the expression on his face. “Me?” he finally says. “You wanted—”

“Yes, you goddamn moron,” Eddie says, and it’s like a dam bursting. “I wanted you, I still want you, I want to kiss you and hold your hand and I want to fuck you so you know what it’s like and I want—”

Eddie’s words are cut off by a kiss.

Richie is up and pushing him into the dresser, kissing him, his hands buried in Eddie’s hair. Eddie’s hands flail for a moment before reaching up around Richie’s shoulders, pulling him closer, the heat from his body radiating off and sinking into Eddie’s skin. His lips are so, so soft.

Eddie never wants to leave.

Richie pulls away, and Eddie takes the opportunity to move, pushing Richie back onto the bed and straddling him, leaning down to kiss him again. Richie’s hands settle on his waist, sliding down to his ass, and Eddie realizes there’s not much between them: his underwear, Richie’s sweatpants and _The Smiths_ t-shirt.

The t-shirt. Eddie pulls back for breath and looks down. “Is that the shirt I slept in?” he asks, and Richie goes bright red. It’s enough of an answer for Eddie. He grins and pulls Richie back in.

At some point, when Eddie’s lips are going a bit numb, they slow down. Eddie ends up curled next to Richie under the covers, his legs over Richie’s, his face buried in Richie’s shoulder. They’re both half-hard, but Eddie doesn’t really want to do anything about it. He just wants to stay here for maybe the rest of his life.

“I’m such an idiot,” he says, and Richie laughs, reaching up to ruffle his hair.

“For once, it’s your turn,” Richie says, and Eddie grins, pressing a kiss into his shoulder.

 _I love you_ , he thinks. It might be too soon to say it, but as Richie pulls him up for another kiss and he starts to fall asleep, he thinks Richie feels the same.

***


End file.
